Woot! A new OS for ALL flavours of computer. And the Social Media must-have game makes it to more Canadian cities. …more

This is the week that was from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Window 7 has been available at retail for a couple of weeks now, so I thought I’d use this post to explore some of the cooler features and functions, cooler to me, at least And, of course, when you select features to profile, a nice round number is always a bonus… …more

7 nifty things about windows 7 from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Ever wish you could undo a particular driver or application installation? I have, recently in fact when I installed Adobe CS3 on my wife’s Windows 7 /XP dual-boot computer. Something happened in that install that pooched the Flash plugin for Internet Explorer. It could have been a bad scene, except for a cool little feature of Windows 7, one that has been a part of the Windows OS since ME (so there was one good thing about ME). …more

Going back in time with Windows 7 from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

The Wave tsunami tamed by followers. Microsoft slamming the door on Xbox mods. Apple opening the door to ‘enforced advertising’. Twitter timid about ReTweets. …more

This is the week that was… from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

The following post is a QuickHit™ — an article or post I found online and thought was important enough to share directly with you. Of course, you’ll see my thoughts or opinions prepended or appended to this post, otherwise I’m just scraping content, and that’s not the intent.

via erictanart.blogspot.com

Or this Battlestar Galactica retro

Permalink

…more

You’ve just read a QuickHit™. Thanks! And don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Some cool retro posters from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Ok, it’s a lousy title for a movie, but it is a great reminder to review and execute your data backup strategies, both at home and online.

Why Friday the 13th?
Simply, it’s a day-date combination that happens infrequently, almost ad-hoc. When it does occur, you can easily plan to take time out to perform your maintenance chores.

It’s also a very memorable day. In fiction, bad things happen on Friday the 13th — so the best way to prevent those bad things from happening to you, is to take proactive measures…and what better day to remember to do that than Friday the 13th!

Some things to do

• Backup your home computer systems
• Backup your blog(s)
• Backup your other content stored in the cloud (flickr, Google Docs, iTunes video & music)
• Remove and delete programs you’ve not used for a while
• Review and backup your password & account information
• Purge your online email accounts of old mail
• Defrag your hard drives

More reading
I’ve written a few posts about backups and maintenance before, so if you want to dig into the detail, here’s a handy list, sorted by backup tag.

Lifehacker posted this great overview of a personal backup system worth checking out.

Friday the 13th: Refuge in the backup from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Not everyone wants to lug a laptop around with them between classes or across town to a study session at the library. Or perhaps you’re moving between a work computer, your home computer and a remote worksite computer, yet want to make sure you’ve got your suite of regular-use tools at hand (’cause you certainly can’t guarantee they’ll be installed on computers you don’t control). This is where the concept of the ‘portable application’ comes to the rescue. …more

Portable computing with Portable Apps from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Some of you probably suffer from the same problem that I have; it’s just not big enough. Sure, you confide in your close friends, they all nod sympathetically, tell you that ‘size isn’t important’, yet really, we all know that it is. Especially when we’re talking about hard drives in Netbooks! …more

It’s not the size, it’s what you do with it from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve upgraded from Vista or XP, or if you’ve bought a new Windows 7 based computer, you’re going to need to install some basic and essential applications on your new baby.

And this awesome website makes it so, SO easy. 4 easy steps:

• Visit the site
• Select which applications you want
• Press the button to start a download
• Run the downloaded application

Visit the site
Ninite.com is a very cool web app with a single function: to make a custom downloader and installer that will save you time and mouseclicks to install commonly used open-source and free applications.

The page looks like this, a long list of applications and utilities, divided into sections by application type.

Ninite includes everything from office suite applications (Open Office, MS Office trial), image and  audio editors, to system maintenance utilities, virus scanners, and media burning tools.

Get your applications
This couldn’t be simpler. Click on the apps or utilities you want. Unfortunately there’s no link to a product overview so if you’re not familiar with the application you will need to Google it.

Press the button
This initiates a bit of back-end magic at the site. A custom download/installer application is built and sent to your computer. It contains all the information necessary to, when run, download and install (in background) the applications you selected in the previous step.

Make it so
When  you run the installer, a window opens showing you the progress of the process. If you’re curious, you can ‘show the details’ and each phase of the install can be viewed.

Why?
The big benefit for me is the time saving and the click saving. What would normally take over an hour for a new install, basically takes 2–5 minutes of my time, the rest happens in background while I do something else. To quote from the developers:

Ninite runs on Windows XP/Vista/7 and works
in the background 100% hands-free.

We install apps with default settings and
say “no” to browser toolbars and other junk.

All we do is install the latest versions of the apps
you choose. Not even Ninite is installed.

How can that not be cool?

How to easily install essential applications on a new Windows 7 computer from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.

Potpourri. That’s the word I’d use to describe the news from the web this week. A real melange (oh, another good word) of themes, with fruty scents, hinting at the onset of the holiday buying season. …more

This is the week that was from the blog of Brad Grier, a Canadian technology blogger, writer, and tech enthusiast.